Weapons, words, and code - all means of changing reality. All, however, are sharp tools in that not only can they turn in your hands, but they'll do exactly what you tell them to - even if that's not what you meant.

July 26, 2004

4G iPod addendum

This is a small thing I noticed re: the 4G iPod...I have since asked 3G owners, who say theirs doesn't do this. If I'm listening to the iPod via headphones while it's undocked, and I remove the headphones, the iPod pauses. Then, if I don't replug the headphones and unpause within the normal timeout, it shuts down to save power (and, incidentally, save my place in the song, since it paused rather than stopped). This used to happen to me all the time; when removing the iPod from the car, I'd disconnect the cassette adapter from the headphone jack and forget to stop the iPod, which would then happily drain its entire battery charge sitting disconnected in my bag. No more. This is one of those 'little things' that makes this iPod such a joy to use...while there is no shortage of annoying things that Apple does, little things like this (which was not trumpeted as a Feature anywhere on the promo literature) indicate to me that there is still a team working on the iPod who love their little jellybean child and continue to lavish their smarts on it.